


Five Ways Asuna Could Have Successfully Made A Jailbreak

by Satori



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Feminism, Gen, Girls who don't need to be rescued, Not a Damsel In Distress, Take Your Faux Action Girl Elsewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-12-03 04:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satori/pseuds/Satori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asuna was a lead clearer in SAO, known as 'the Flash' for her speed and grace.  She rose to a leadership position in the premiere guild of that Game, risking her life to protect others.  She was the antithesis of the damsel of distress.  That she more or less became one in the first ALO arc was just plain fury-inducing.</p>
<p>Here are five antidotes to the 'lone hero syndrome' that the arc seems to have fallen prey to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways Asuna Could Have Successfully Made A Jailbreak

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things that made Asuna interesting as character was that unlike so many female leads, she was never the damsel in distress in the original story arc of SAO. It was horribly disappointing when she became such for the first ALO arc. So, as a form of protest, I present to you:

  
Five Ways Asuna Could Have Successfully Made A Jailbreak.

 

  
  
**I: She's not called the Flash for her _clothing_ , folks.**  
  
Asuna had been on the forefront of what could well be described as a war for well over a year and a half.  While she'd spent a considerable amount of effort on culinary mastery while playing SAO, she had also been one of the best warriors in the game, and not just as a matter of in-game stats.  That sort of thing cultivated reflexes, creativity, and a sense of situational awareness - all vital attributes when one wanted to survive on the blade’s edge.  In the 75th boss fight, she'd been the first to realize the monster was hanging from the roof.  A giant purple slug trying to sneak up on her was frankly almost insulting.  She sped up her manipulation of the console, easily sidestepped the first, amateurishly telegraphed attempt to grab her, and hit log out well before whoever was using the slug avatar could think to try blocking her from his own menu.  A flash of white, and she was gone...

 

* * *

 

* * *

  
  
**II: Going Off the Rails.**  
  
The door set into the World-Tree hummed under her hand for a moment, and then vanished entirely, revealing a gleaming white hallway  Asuna leaned in, peeking around the corner.  The white corridor remained featureless in both directions, aside from periodic arches that only emphasized how much nothing they framed.  Asuna did not relish the idea of getting lost in another psuedo-dungeon; hadn't she done enough of that as an officer of the Knights of the Blood Oath?  No, she could spend hours wandering and never get anywhere important.    
  
She backed away from the door and peeked over the side of the railings on the world tree branch instead.  It was a long way down, but according to Sugou himself, Kabaya's kill switch was no longer active, at least in her case - the bastard wasn’t going to let her deprive him of his pleasures by killing herself.  She could fall all the way down without having to worry about injuring herself.  But what would that accomplish, aside to force a re-spawn on herself - and who knew whether that would put her somewhere below or back in her birdcage.  
  
After a moment's consideration, she almost slapped her head at her own foolishness.  Sugou has boasted that ALfenheim Online was a successful gaming venture, having done much to rehabilitate the fulldive technology after what had happened in SAO.  That meant the game world below would have GM support.  Surely the GMs couldn't be in on Sugou's schemes - they were too far down the corporate ladder, and uninvolved in research.  Asuna knew all too well that secrets became exponentially more vulnerable as they spread and that conspiracies had to minimize their membership; a bloody lesson from the campaign against the PKers the Knights had been forced to undertake when one of the cleared floors threatened to collapse into anarchy due to the unchecked banditry of the ‘orange players.’  All she had to do was to get down there, far enough that she was in the sphere of the ALO game proper rather than the top part of the tree, which Sugou had blocked off as his private playground.  Surely the GM's would notice an unregistered player suddenly appearing, and if her Avatar survived, she could even ask someone to deliver a message.  
  
It was something of a gamble, but it was more likely to get her somewhere in the limited time she had before Sugou's return, than wandering those featureless halls.  She hauled herself up onto the side-rail, balanced on the edge, and after taking a deep breath, dropped over the side.

* * *

  
Argo hummed to herself as she dashed down a street.  The central city of Aarun wasn't as much of a hub as she would have liked, given that there were obstacles and field mobs between it and all the various capital cities of the 9 races, which functioned as the centers of trade.  But even without SAO's easy teleports, Aarun was the center of the grapevine, a neutral city where all the various races met and mingled.  Rebuilding her network in the new game was taking time, but having a reputation from the old one helped - there were other SAO survivors who found that putting some time into ALO eased the transition back to normal life, and there was a certain cachet to being a survivor.  A unmentioned, but undeniable respect accorded to those who had made it through Kabaya’s brutal test.  After those two years in a world so different than what she had grown up in, Alfenheim felt more like home than Japan.  Returning to the outside world after SAO had proved to be a difficult prospect for her.  She'd had respect, power even, in the society of SAO, and going back to being an outspoken high school student whose radical opinions were seldom taken seriously had been depressing.  Fortunately, her father was a soft-hearted sort and had been willing to tolerate his daughter returning to immersive gaming as a way of coping with the increased alienation she felt. Reconnecting with old friends and recreating a place for herself as an information broker made her feel like she had a place in the world.  
  
The only dark cloud on the horizon was her increasing certainty that something was hinky with the whole "Ascend the Tree" quest.  It suggested that the new company that had taken over fulldive gaming, while not run by a killer madman, still had things to hide.  Thinking of clouds, she looked up, towards the higher sections of the world tree that the cloud cover obscured.  She was going to find out what lay behind them for sure.  As though the universe was teasing her, her eyes, enhanced as part of the Cat Sith racial package, picked out something silhouetted against them.  After a moment, it resolved into a humanoid shape.  
  
A player, that high up?  It shouldn't be possible - the only way the first (and only) group to get a glimpse of the upper branches hand managed to get that high was with an exploit, and the game had been patched to prevent any further such shenanigans.  As the figure fell closer, she began to make out it's features.  Definitely an avatar, and judging from the lack of active wings, one that had run it's flight time down.  Argo wanted, no, _needed_ to know how that player had made it up there.  She activated her own wings and headed up to intercept...

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

  
**III: With Great Power comes... well, you know.**  
  
She almost made a beeline for the console the moment she saw it.  But her sense of duty cut her off at the proverbial pass.  The disgusting scientists - disgusting both in their current forms and in what they were doing, were talking about this secret project of Sugou's.  She needed this information to make sure he paid for his evil when the authorities became aware of his actions.  She owed it to all the people they were torturing to have that information so their tormenters' full crimes would be known.  So she waited, crouched out of sight while the two creatures -she refused them the dignity of thinking of them as people- discussed the heinous experiments they were performing.  
  
Emotional Manipulation. Memory alteration.  Outright mind control.  Her horror and gorge rose with each sentence.  After what was probably only half an hour but felt like half a day, the two logged out, leaving her alone with a sick stomach and three hundred helpless victims.  Well they wouldn't be for much longer if she had anything to say about it.  Gathering herself together, she stood and shakily made for the console.  Her father would hear of this, and then the police, and, if she could help it, the whole world.  This sort of thing could not be permitted.  Anywhere.    
  
Now where was the log out...

 

* * *

 

* * *

  
  
**IV: On Call**  
  
Yoshida Tepei sighed, stubbing out a cigarette, as he leaned back in his swivel chair.  Being a GM for a immersive MMO had seemed like an exciting job when he'd first applied for it, but the reality was far more tedious.  He dealt with the rare glitch, the far more common upset-player, and the inevitable ‘complete noob who desperately needed help understanding what a computer was, let alone a computer game.’  Still, he'd hung on this long, more as a matter of stubbornness as anything else.  He'd been slated to work as one of the original GMs for SAO, but that position had been neatly eliminated by Kayaba's mad plan.  He'd suffered through interrogation with the national police, a period of unemployment, and his own impotent frustration at sitting by helplessly while the news reported on how the players who were supposed to have been in his charge were dropping like flies - dead at the whims of a megalomaniac.  
  
Hiring the GM's originally assembled for SAO to help run ALO was a kind gesture on the part of Yuuki-san, awkward as that had been.  The man was still grieving for his daughter, one of the 300 mystery cases who had failed to log out of the system when the mysterious ‘black swordsman’ had cleared the game.  Tepei was grateful for the work, but he also felt the man's helpless longing keenly; it was something that mirrored his own ennui during the months after SA)’s launch, when he had sat at home, staring blankly at the promotional materials for SAO he'd been issued when he'd won the coveted GM slot.  He wondered if Yuuki had personally arranged for the acquisition of the fulldive technology in hopes of finding the key to reviving his daughter.  If so, the man's efforts had been in vain.  Yuuki Asuna remained in her enforced coma.  
  
So far, ALO had been a rarely challenging, but at least frequently amusing, world to watch over.  Though Tepei was beginning to wonder what corporate was up to with delaying the implementation of the upper levels of Yggdrasil - hadn't the plans called for a grand city there?  Sure, the players were content with exploring the world below for now, but several groups were already building up towards making an assault on the central quest that was supposed to give them access to the courts of the Fairy King Oberon.  Disappointing them would ruin all the work that had gone into creating ALO and rehabilitating the fulldive technology in the public perception.  Yet corporate had been deaf to the memos sent, not only from the GMs but from other divisions, and the only concession to the concerns voiced about the increasingly curious probing of the tree by players had been to implement a hard barrier to getting up beyond the cloud cover from the outside.  He hoped they were going to fix this soon, or he'd be out a job again.  
  
"Hey, Tepei, we've got something weird here."  His fellow DM, Matsushiro Reika slid over on her own swivel chair.  She'd been added to the GM lineup to present a younger, more friendly face, especially to the larger proportion of female players ALO's graceful elfin avatars attracted.  "We've got a player on the wrong side of the cloud barrier.  
  
He blinked.  He'd thought of that particular half measure, and now it came up.  The universe had a harsh sense of humor.  "Someone found another exploit?"  
  
"No, that's the weird thing.  According to the game data, she fell down onto it from above."  Reina's voice was light, but her tone showed that she was concerned.  That shouldn't be possible.  "Do you think someone might have hacked themselves admin access?"  
  
Now that would be a problem.  If they'd used a hack to gain access to the closed off portions of Yggdrasil, then word of just how incomplete ALO was would be out before the day was.  He pulled up the data on his own terminal and started digging into the player data.  His mouth dropped.  "Reina, this can't be right."  
  
She peered over his shoulder.  "That player data is corrupted, I guess - that can happen with a hack."  
  
Tepei shook his head, and reached with a trembling hand for another cigarette.  "No, Reina, look at the format, here."  He patted himself for a lighter, completely forgetting that it was on the table in front of him.  "That ID is assigned for Sword Art Online."  
  
He felt her stiffen with shock.  "You mean this is one of the missing 300?"  She dropped back into her own seat.  "How is that possible?"  
  
"I don't know," Tepei told her, having finally acquired his lighter.  He flicked it open.  "It should make the boss happy though.  That ID is for Yuuki Asuna"  
  
"The CEO's daughter!?"  She jumped back out of her seat.  "We have to call the home office."  
  
"We better call the police first," Tepei said, taking his first drag of the newly lit cigarette.  "If the 300 are still in the system, we're looking at an inside job."  
  
Reina looked at him, horrified.  "ALO won't survive that.  We'll lose our jobs."  
  
Tepei shrugged.  "Better than whoever did this.  If my impression of Yuuki-san is correct, that person is going to lose his head."  He stifled a nerves-induced giggle.  "I have his office number.  You call the national police."  
  
Reina nodded, shakily, and went to find their office phone.  Tepei fished his cell phone out of his pocket.  He wondered how Yuuki-san would take the news...

 

* * *

 

* * *

  
  
**V: Rules Lawyering**  
  
Sword Art Online had been a living world, one full of all the human triumphs and tribulations.  The detail of the system had allowed a great many vices - killing other players was merely the most obvious, given how Kabaya had turned it into a Death Game.  But there were other illicit pleasures that could be derived from the game system, ranging from glitches that could be used to simulate ‘recreational pharmaceuticals’ to sexual assault.     
  
The 'erotic' simulation wasn't actually Kabaya's work - that had been one of the first things that third party coders had put together after the release of the nerve gear.  But Kabaya, or whoever he delegated the work to, had been quite willing to co-opt that programming for SAO, which had, after all promised to deliver the 'full experience.'  Thankfully, whatever madness had driven him to want the full experience of mortality had not extended to making the worst indignities a woman could suffer a part of the package.  SAO had a very comprehensive anti-harassment system, one she'd had the opportunity to use, after half a year into the game, when fear and frustration had driven even a few of her fellow ‘clearers’ to such acts.    
  
Of course, even that system, as well designed as it was, was not perfect.  There were, Asuna had heard, ways of circumventing the protections by fooling the game into treating an encounter as if in combat mode, even when the assailant sought to do a different sort of injury.  She'd never seen such a thing actually happen, but it was one more fear that lay upon her in the nightmare that SAO had become in those months, one more layer of despair that had settled on her shoulders.  Kirito's casual contentment with the moments he could steal in that world, reminding her that they were in a game, meant to be enjoyed, not suffered, had been a balm to her soul, then.  How could she not love the one who had proved to her that there was still happiness and humanity to be found, even in the dark days?  
  
But her struggle to get back to him, to bask in that warmth again, had run into disaster.  It was like all her old nightmares had come out of the shadows; the fear, even more than the slug monster's tentacles, holding her in place.  She trembled, struggling, but in vain.  Was this how it all ended?  After all she had fought for and struggled to accomplish, was her end to be the plaything of venal men?  No.  Asuna refused to accept that she was helpless, even now.  Even as she whimpered at the scientist-slug's disturbingly lurid plans for her, her mind raced, searching for anything she could do to get free.  
  
Ironically, it was her fears that provided the answer.  The anti-harassment protocol.  It was still active in ALO - Sugou had implied as much when he'd tried to terrify her by demonstrating that he'd bypassed it, giving himself special access to her avatar, undermining the game engine.  But would he have given the same 'privileges' to his lab lackeys?  No - he was the jealous sort of man.  Now what could she do to provoke the monster who held her into activating the protocol?  
  
"You're all talk" she stammered out, feigning frightened defiance.  "You wouldn't dare do any such things."  You're Sugou's lapdog, that's all.  You wouldn't dare take more than his scraps."  
  
"Wouldn't I," the creature hissed at her, and she could help but tense as she felt the slimy appendage wind its way up her thigh.  If she'd guessed wrong - but no, the anti-harassment panel flickered into existence before her eyes, just as she'd hoped.  Unlike most menus this one, bless the foresight of whoever programmed it, could be activated by voice.  "Kick," she said, careful to enunciate clearly.  For a terrifying moment, she thought it hadn't worked.   Then she was falling to the floor, the slug-thing banished back to wherever he had initially logged in at.  The breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding released itself.  She allowed herself a moment of the shakes.  Then, knowing that the other one would be back soon, she threw herself back to her feet and activated the console...


End file.
